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Show Lucy's face was as bright as the rosy dawn in the eastern sky. A blare of trumpets over at the place of assembly brought us to a sudden halt. My first wild thought was the joyous conjecture that by some miracle the Government troops had entered the Great Basin undetected, and were come to arrest Brigham for his defiance of Federal authority. In the same instant I remembered Smoot and Rockwell and divined that they had brought news from the East. The trumpets were being sounded that the camp might assemble to hear the announcement. On all sides of us men and women and children poured from the t ents and streamed towards the speakers' stand. With the others, Mr. and Mrs. Sen by hastened out in alarm. Chilcott came striding past us, at the head of his flock. We followed a little behind him. ' Soon we were in the midst of the swiftly gathering crowd of Saints, a few yards from the platform on which Brigham was waiting to address the assemblage. I had held fast to Lucy's arm to keep her from bemg swept away from me. In the confusion Cora became seP.arated from her party and was jostled about until she found refuge be~ide me. Though seemmgly acCidental, I felt certam that this result had been intended by her. But even she instantly forgot all else when the Prophet held up his hands for silence and burst out in a torrent of fiery eloquence. " Brethren! " he roared, pacing angrily to and fro across the platform- " brethren of Israel ! now is the beginning of the time of wrath which the Lord shall visit upon the godless Gentiles! Liars have reported to Washington that this people have committed treason. Upon their lies the President has ordered out troops to aid in forcing on this Territory a new batch of his cussed Federal officers. If this lot are like many what've previously been sent here, they are poor miserable blacklegs, broke down political THE MORMON LION 197 hacks and robbers ; men what're not f1t for civilized society- so they must dragoon 'em upon us! "I feel I won't stand any such cussed treatment, and that's enough to say- for we're just as free as this here mountain air. We ain't in bondage to any Government on God's footstool. We hain't transgressed no Jaw, and we hain't had no occasion to do so; we don't intend to, neither. But as for any nation a-coming to destroy this people- the people at whose head the Lord Himself has set me as the successor of Toseph,- I affirm unto you, God A'mighty being my helper, they can't come here! " A vehement " Amen! " rolled up from the excited crowd as Brigham paused for breath. He flung out his hand in an imperious gesture. " You know me. You know that here in this land my word is law- not the silly blatter of them fools in Washington. We've bore enough of their oppression and heliish abuse, and we won't bear no more of it. The day of retribution is at hand for their past crimes. There couldn't 'a' been a more damnably dastardly order issued than they issued to this people in 1846, when this was Injin country. We'd left their borders ; we'd come here into the desert when they didn't have no shadder of a claim of Territorial sovereignty. Yet the minute they'd beaten and robbed the innocent Mexican greasers, the poor low degraded cusses had the impidence to claim that all this here country had become U.S. territory ! President Polk done that; and he's now weltering in hell ; where the present Administration soon'll be if they don't repent. "I said then, and I say now, I'm going to be Gov'nor as long's the Lord A'mighty wishes me to govern this here people! And I am't going to allow troops to come and drive us from the land we possess. You might as well tell me you can make n ell into a powder-house as tell me they intend to keep an army in the Valley and have peace. They'll say their army is legal. I say such a statement is false as hell, |